The present invention generally relates to a method for communicating an event message between one or more client computers operatively connected to a peripheral device, and more particularly to a method for adapting the peripheral device to execute an event when selected by a client computer or a user.
It is common for a number of client computers to be connected to more than one peripheral, such as a printer and/or a scanner. This arrangement allows a number of client computers to share the services of the printer and/or the scanner. Such client computers can be personal computers or other computers and will be referred to herein simply as a client. It is becoming more popular to use a multifunction peripheral (MFP) to combine the functions of these peripherals into a single peripheral. As a result, the use of the MFP devices are becoming more sophisticated, creating the need for more efficient communications between the MFP device and the clients.
One prior method of input peripheral event communication involved polling and sending simple button press notifications. However, polling was inefficient because it used the communication bandwidth constantly rather than only when needed. There was also a tradeoff between responsiveness and increased bandwidth use because a prompt response to the user would require frequent polling, which made other communication, such as scanning or printing, take longer.
Another approach has involved adapting the input peripheral to allow the user to select the destination, and then sending the input data directly to that client computer. Another problem involved with this approach was that the client computer often needed to perform various setup steps before it was ready to receive the data. Furthermore, it often needed additional user input to route the data to the desired destination. Although the input could be performed at the client computer, the user was still required to input data in two different places. Alternatively, the input could be performed at the peripheral, but this required the peripheral to know all possible actions that the client computer might want to take with the data, which made it very difficult to add new functions to client computer software because of the necessity to change the peripheral at the same time.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved method for more efficient communications of an event message between a peripheral device and a client connected to the network.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an improved method in which the user is able to complete the entire input task at the peripheral device.
The present invention provides a method for communicating an event message between one or more clients operatively connected to a peripheral device, and more particularly to a method for adapting the peripheral device to execute an event selected by a client or a user. The user can complete the entire input task at the peripheral device.
In accordance with this invention, there is provided a method for maintaining a table of event descriptors in the peripheral device, selectively adding entries to the table in response to receiving a preselected add event descriptor request from a connected client, selectively deleting entries from the table in response to receiving a preselected delete event descriptor request from a connected client, and consisting of a user selecting an entry from said table of event descriptors for executing the selected event.